Glacier & Ice Landforms

Glacier & Ice Landforms is an interactive 3D earth-science simulation of alpine glaciation and glacial geomorphology. Students adjust winter snowfall, summer temperature, and valley slope to control the glacier's net mass balance in meters of water equivalent per year. Even when warm summers cause the glacier terminus to retreat up-valley, internal velocity vectors and plucked bedrock boulders demonstrate that glacial ice continues flowing downhill like a conveyor belt under gravity. Students can drag the terminus beacon or Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) handle directly in 3D space and click landforms including the cirque basin, U-shaped trough, lateral moraines, and terminal moraine arch.

• Increase Winter snowfall above 4.0 m w.e. and lower Summer temperature below 0 °C to watch the glacier snout advance down the U-shaped valley.
• Raise Summer temperature to +6 °C so net mass balance turns negative, and observe that internal ice arrows and boulders still move downhill while the snout retreats.
• Drag the yellow Equilibrium Line (ELA) marker up and down the glacier to see the boundary between white accumulation snow and blue ablation ice.
• Advance the glacier to push the rocky Terminal Moraine ridge further down-valley, then warm the climate to leave the moraine behind as a climate footprint.
• Click the Cirque Basin, Lateral Moraine, and Terminal Moraine markers to read how freeze-thaw plucking and abrasion sculpt alpine peaks.

1. 1Calculate how winter accumulation and summer ablation determine a glacier's net mass balance and terminus motion.
2. 2Explain why glacial ice always flows downhill under gravity even when the glacier snout is retreating.
3. 3Identify the accumulation zone, ablation zone, and Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) on an alpine glacier.
4. 4Describe how glacial erosion and deposition form cirques, U-shaped valleys, lateral moraines, and terminal moraines.

Questions teachers ask